Well I had a fab time revisiting the old place last week to do a talk at the Union Society — somewhere I spent many happy hours, oh, aeons ago!
Many thanks to Rebecca and the rest of the team for organising and hosting the event, and to Silkie for setting the whole ball rolling.
It was a busy weekend. The Friday evening began with an all-too-brief appearance at the first meeting of a new group, MI7 — can I say that, or is it a state secret? — organised by Silkie and Charlie Veitch of the Love Police.
It was strange to go back to the Union as a speaker after so long and so many unusual experiences. The audience seemed to stay wide awake for my hour-long talk, and the questions afterwards were interesting, lively and varied. I was also encouraged to see that ideas deemed to be “radical” only a few years ago are now going mainstream.
The next day was taken up with interviews for The Cambridge Student and Varsity student newspapers, Sky 203 Channel, and a photo shoot with QH Photography for a gallery exhibition in London later this year.
The Cambridge Student journalists gamely allowed the interview to be film by Sky 203 — not the easiest of scenarios.
“Varsity” newspaper did a colourful and intelligent interview — thanks Olivia! — which was rapidly followed on the newspaper website today with this puff piece about MI6.
I can only assume that this is merely balanced news reporting, especially as the Master of Pembroke College, Chair of the Trustee Board of the Union Society, and former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, will be speaking at the Union in a couple of weeks.….
Certainly an interesting juxtaposition!
The photo shoot was fun, and the results will be appearing in London at the end of this year. As you can see from the photo on the left, Huy takes a mean picture.
I also ran into Ryan J‑W Smith, who is in the process of completing his intriguing film, 2Plus2Makes4. Limited private and festival screenings are expected this summer.
The film synopsis asks some fundamental questions:
“How close are we to sliding into Orwell’s totalitarian nightmare, ‘1984’? Controversial, shocking, powerful and honest — starring Tony Benn, Gore Vidal, former MI5, CIA, FBI agents, Senators, Presidential Nominees, etc. A ‘Must-See’ feature documentary from award-winning filmmaker, Ryan J‑W Smith. Smith’s previous films have received 16 International Film Festival Selections, 5 ‘Best Film’ Nominations, and 4 ‘Best Film’ wins.”